Cairo’s appellate criminal court was due to resume on Sunday hearing the appeals of an accountant and two clothing-store owners against their first-instance convictions for drug trafficking and firearms possession in Ain Shams.[1] The three defendants are a 31-year-old accountant and two clothing-store owners aged 36 and 32 who were accused of possessing hashish, cannabis resin, for trafficking outside legally permitted cases.[1][2] The trial court sentenced all three to 15 years of rigorous imprisonment and fined each of them 100,000 Egyptian pounds for drug trafficking.[1][2] It also sentenced the first and second defendants to three years of rigorous imprisonment for possessing firearms and ammunition, while acquitting the third defendant of the weapons charge.[1]

An anti-narcotics officer acting on prosecution permission searched the first defendant, catching him with hashish and cash, and found a firearm and ammunition in his car.[1] Another anti-narcotics inspector acting on prosecution orders detained the second defendant with the third defendant present, finding hashish, cash and mobile phones on them and later recovering a shotgun and ammunition on the second defendant’s guidance.[1] The referral states that the first defendant held an unlicensed blank-firing pistol with four rounds and that the second and third held a shotgun with five rounds without licences.[1]

The Ain Shams case was before Cairo’s appellate criminal court, with the appeals still to be heard at publication.[1]

Cairo’s appellate criminal court postponed the hearing on the three defendants’ appeals to the 12 November session.[2]